Dr. Louis Nadelson: Always More to Learn

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine today. It is my great pleasure to speak with another doctor, Dr. Louis Nadelson, who is joining us from the great state of Arkansas. Thank you for joining us today.

Louis Nadelson: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure being here. I really appreciate the invitation and look forward to our conversation.

Lisa Belisle: Yes. I have to say this right up front. You are the chair of my dissertation committee for the doctorate that I've been working on, also a professor in several of the classes that I've taken in the doctorate through University of Arkansas. So this is a slightly different conversation we're having, but I wanted people to understand that context, that you and I have worked together for about two years-ish at this point. Little did I know that behind all of your academic achievements, and you are a prodigious writer and publisher of academic pieces, you also are a creative to a pretty significant magnitude. It's amazing.

Louis Nadelson: Thank you. I have lots of interests, and I like to explore. To create is something I really enjoy doing. And so finding outlets for doing that is something that fulfills me deeply.

Lisa Belisle: So there's two areas that I wanna make sure we talk about, and one of them is your music, and one of them are the creations that you bring to life out of essentially found objects. Since this is a show about creativity, and we're gonna talk about art, let's talk about that first. You started bringing things into our, you and I will have weekly conversations about mostly dissertation stuff. And you started showing me things when you heard that I had an affiliation with the art gallery. Like, look at this table that I made out of a wagon wheel, you know, you started showing me these things. I was like, wait, who is this person? This is such a different person than the person that was teaching the class of leadership that I took. So how did you first get into making things out of farm implements and other found objects?

Louis Nadelson: I've always admired art, but I haven't really engaged in it. I've always liked to build things and make things. I've built houses. I've built two houses from the ground up. I've remodeled 15 houses, getting several of those down to the studs, moving walls, pouring new concrete and so forth. And so that's a creative process as well, building things. But actually my wife, who's also a doctor, Dr. Sandra Nason, she took an artistic welding class about 25 years ago. And I just thought she's dabbling in it. And she came home and said, hey, I think we need to get a welder, because I'm really liking this. And it's like, okay. And then I watched her weld for a moment, and it's just like, oh, teach me.

I instantly gravitated toward that. And so she taught me, and the next semester, these are personal enrichment classes, these continued education classes, I took the class with her and I gained a lot of skills. And at the same time, we were out driving around Washington State, and we came across a sculpture garden made of found objects as well, which we've been dabbling in. And this sculpture garden was remarkable. So we walked around this sculpture garden, about five acres with these remarkable big sculptures, and started wandering around and saw this guy welding there. And I said, hey, we're looking for the owner of this. We'd like to talk to him. It's like, okay, what do you want to say?

And it's like, well, are you the owner? He's like, yeah. And I said, are you also the artist? And he's like, yeah. His name's Dan Klennert. And Dan's been nationally, internationally recognized for his art. And we, to this day, are close friends, and we've built a relationship. So we would go and hang out with him when we were living in Washington State, in his studio, and spend two, three days just creating. He's working on his work and I'm working on mine, and we talk to each other and give each other ideas. And he's got this big scrap yard and we go out and find things. And as we're finding things, it's like getting new ideas. And so that was kind of my early experience with that. And since then, I've just really fell in love with it.

And the creativity. Another inspiration that I took was when we lived in Nevada, in Las Vegas. There's a lot of petroglyphs and that rock art that's around that area. And so I got really inspired by Southwest, particularly indigenous art. And I've made multiple kokopellis and other kinds of what I would consider modeling after that rock art. And so one of the pieces that I sent to you, it's kind of a piece that's mounted on an old cellar door, is what that is. And that piece was modeled after that same kind of form and idea from that rock art. And so that's been a real inspiration. But I've always, I grew up in the Church of Nature, is what I say.

When everybody else was going to church on Sundays, we were going hiking in the mountains, or wherever else out in the prairie. I grew up in the Denver area, in Colorado. And so I spent an awful lot of time outside, deep respect for nature, really passionate about that. So I take a lot of inspiration from that as well. And you'll see that in some of my art. Birds and fish and other kinds of critters that I have, I really tried to model and tried to create that form, and yet try to be whimsical about some of it as well. Don't take it too serious, and don't try to make it authentic, but try to provide that form, but also that artistic expression.

And so one of the pictures I sent to you, it was a little subtle, but it was a bird that's on a rock. And we were in central Utah, in Price, Utah, and there was a rock shop there, and we went in, and here was this slab of rock with bird prints in it, and they're fossilized bird prints. And so it's like, I brought that, I thought that was so cool, and I brought it home. And I had that bird, and it's like that bird's feet looked almost like the bird feet that are on that rock. And so I put 'em together there. But once again, taking that inspiration from nature and getting some ideas from that as well.

Lisa Belisle: So I'm assuming that this early interest in nature at least had some influence on your decision as an undergraduate to focus on science?

Louis Nadelson: Absolutely. My first kind of regular job, mowing lawns and doing those other kinds of things as kids, but the first one was, I actually was working in a large veterinary animal practice. And when I say large, not large animals, a large practice. There were seven veterinarians and 120 cages in this building, and a couple operating rooms, and x-ray room, and seven or eight exam rooms. It was a big practice. And so I really got interested in the medicine part of working with animals as well. And so I thought, oh, I want to become a veterinarian. But I worked there for seven years, and it's like, by the time it was time to apply for veterinary school, it's like, I don't know if I want to continue doing this, because there's so many other interests that I had.

And so in the meantime, I had taken such a wide variety of classes, from microbiology, herpetology, developmental biology and so forth, and all of those kept feeding together to build this bigger and bigger picture of understanding nature, the botany and ethnobotany, and to really understand and delve deeper into nature. That really influenced my desire to become a teacher. And I taught biology for several years at the high school level, as well as physics and chemistry and so forth, just some of those natural sciences. And so, yeah, that definitely influenced me, was my appreciation for nature. And not just animals, but the physical world as well.

Lisa Belisle: And then as you're moving through, you do focus on quite a bit of educational work, and you ended up, it looks like you actually went for one doctorate, completed the coursework, and then switched to a different doctorate. Apparently. I would assume you'd have to go through all the coursework for that, plus your dissertation, at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, in educational psychology. And your dissertation was preservice teachers' understanding of evolution, nature of science, and situations of chance, which I just, again, find so fascinating. There's so many different kinds of threads that you've woven together to create not only your current creative artistic life, but also your current academic life.

Louis Nadelson: And once again, that kind of is reflective of my interests. I had somebody, I was telling him the many different places I've worked and my different degrees and so forth, and he was kind of talking to me about some of that. And he says, so you moved a lot and you've gone to many places and so forth. And he said, so you just can't keep a job, right? Which was kind of funny. But it's not that I get bored. It's other opportunities come up, and it's like, oh, I wonder if. And so there's that recent book about Fred Rogers. When you wonder, you're learning. And so I fully embrace that idea: when I wonder, I've learned. And so by trying all these different things and exploring all these different ideas, I've grown so much mentally, emotionally, from my career as well, a little bit. But I think more of it's been much more personal than professional in the motivation for exploring all these different areas.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I love that. And I remember in a couple of the courses that I took with you early on, there was this running theme of, not yet, we're not there yet. It's always a growth mindset. It's always, what are we learning here? Which I think really is a very specific, and for me a very relatable, approach to just life in general. You're never gonna learn all the stuff, so keep, as you're going along, just being open to what's in front of you, and what can you bring into your existence that creates maybe intellectual curiosity, maybe some level of happiness. But I think what I've noticed in some people, in academics, not all, I know that there's a lot of different ways to approach academia, is that some people feel more comfortable getting more and more narrowed in focus, so that they're kind of at the pinnacle and they spend many, many years studying exactly one thing forever. And I've been somewhat jealous of that, because somehow that seems a little bit less challenging than all the stuff, all the squirrels that I keep wanting to chase into the trees. And at the same time, it's so different than the way that I approach things.

Louis Nadelson: Yeah, and I'm with you on the squirrels. There's the two extremes on that. There's the field view, an inch deep, a mile wide, or the post hole view of a mile deep and an inch wide. And those are the two extremes with that. And I definitely lead to that field view of, I wanna know a little bit, because I can't know it all. I could gain real, real deep knowledge of something, but it's at the cost of learning some other things that I really want to explore. And so for me, with that growth mindset of not yet, I can continue to learn, and that may continue to develop deeper skills and deeper knowledge of some areas, but at the same time, I want to be exploring all these other areas that come up as well.

And so, as long as you're talking about my CV and professional and so forth, if you look, I've published with over 200 people, which is unusual, but I enjoy it. People come, like you came to me with these ideas, and it's just like, sure. Because I know I'll learn from that process with it. And it's interesting to me. Now, some people have come to me with ideas, and it's just like, it just didn't resonate with me, which, those I can count on probably one hand. It's a rare event. But the opportunity, and then working with different people, of course I learned from them as well. I've learned a lot working with you as well, just some different ideas, and a little bit more about medicine and so forth as well, but other ideas as well that you've brought and really got me thinking about change and leading through change and so forth in ways that I hadn't really contemplated before.

And so we've explored a lot of different areas together, and I don't know if I would've come up with that myself, but when other people bring the ideas to me, it's like, of course I'll jump in and do that, because I wanna learn too.

Lisa Belisle: And I do love that idea of learning and education, in that it's sort of mutually beneficial, and it's an iterative process. I took a different course with a different professor, and there was a lot of conversation around ways that education maybe doesn't work so well, and the sort of sage on the stage, where I'm going to bring knowledge into a situation, and you are going to get the knowledge from me, which I have to say, at least in my early medical education, there was a lot of that. And I've seen a lot of sage on the stage stuff, and it still exists in medicine. And for me, I think, well, wait a minute, if I'm always just showing up myself and saying, I know everything and you get to absorb it from me, then what's the ability that I have to actually gain from that situation? I just become more deeply entrenched in my own thoughts and patterns and presentation. So for me, that just doesn't seem like that much fun. And apparently, scientifically, it doesn't bear out that that's actually a very useful way for many people to learn anyway.

Louis Nadelson: It's a terrible way for most people to learn, just sit and listen. It's the one way processing, and what we know about how people learn, that just is antithetical to the evidence of what we know is effective for people learning. Which is interesting. But I think you brought up a really good point about that exchange, that opportunity to learn from each other. And it's also learning on a personal level about how to connect with different people, how to communicate with different people, how to work with different people. Because people have different styles, and some of 'em have been more challenging for me than others, just because it wasn't that the person was challenging, it was they were just different than I was accustomed to.

So I had to really push myself to get out of my comfort zone to really be able to work with these folks, and understand, I'm trying to get them to form to what I want them to be, rather than me adapting to who they are. And I think that also goes back to the art too, about, I can change some things, but there's some things I cannot change. And so it's either I've gotta adapt to it, or it's not going to work. And so my buddy Dan Klennert said to me long ago, almost soon after I met him, he said that he had a Native American tell him, when you push, things push back, but when you stand back and let things flow, they flow.

And so I've tried to, and my wife has reminded me of that many times as I get anxious and try to move things along, and she's like, you're pushing, and it's pushing back. It's like, oh, don't use that against me, because I know it's true. But when something's not working, it's usually because I'm pushing too hard, and I've gotta sometimes step back and let things flow. And I think the reason why I'll push frequently is, I have this vision, this goal in mind, this vision of, this is what it's gonna look like when it's done, and I want to see it, because this is gonna be a great thing. And yet part of the process is the journey, and I've gotta keep that in mind as well. And it's only taken, I don't know, many, many years for me to figure that out, but I'm still learning it. It's part of the lifelong, it's part of the human condition and lifelong learning. And it's better than if you don't learn it, I think.

Lisa Belisle: Well, you told me this great story about a found object that you had wanted to make into a table, and then you realized that as you're putting the top on the table, the table is moving. And you said to yourself, well, either I can turn this into a trick table, in which people put their glasses on it and then the glasses fall off, or I can make it into a kinetic sculpture, and I can do with it what it wants to have done. Right? So I think that's a great example of what you're describing. You're pushing it into one form, and it's saying, but that's not the form I'm meant to be. I'm meant to be something else.

Louis Nadelson: Yeah. I was gonna name that, the table, I think I kidded with you, I was gonna name it sobriety test, this table that moves. And if you're having a hard time keeping track of it, it's probably time to back away, in many ways. But that was actually, that's the second time that's happened in about six months. I also started making a table base out of a chain, and I welded each of the links together, and I had it spiral up, and I started putting the top on, and I realized it's moving all over. And once again going, oh, I wanted this to be a table, and it would be so cool as a table. And yet it's saying, I could have made that chain rigid and I could have welded some other things on there to make it, but it's so much more beautiful and so much more fun as a kinetic sculpture.

And so to embrace that opportunity as an opportunity rather than a problem, that entrepreneurial mindset of taking those risks to try new things like that in doing the art. But then, when you're faced with a situation, not seeing it as a failure, but as an opportunity, how can I take advantage of this situation? And so I've done that a lot. I've had some sculptures where I went down one direction, or some piece of art, I went down one direction and it just wasn't working. And I've put it aside and let it ruminate on it for a while, and then come back and go, I know what I can do with that. And so giving it some time and space and letting it kind of think about things for a while, and using my imagination, I think is a really important part of that. And in many ways, once again, that pushing thing again, standing back and letting it flow. And so that certainly has been more fruitful than pushing, that's for sure.

Lisa Belisle: I remember at the beginning of this conversation, I mentioned two things I wanted to talk about, and one I think we've certainly discussed at some length, although I'm sure we could keep talking for hours, but the other is the music. And for me, this is really interesting, because you are a musician of stringed instruments, but not just one stringed instrument. You have many stringed instruments, and in particular you have one that not many people would think about using on a regular basis. Tell me about that.

Louis Nadelson: I've got one right here in my office. I keep one in my office because I'll play it when I have a break, or I need just a mind break. And so if you've got just a moment, I'll go grab it.

Lisa Belisle: Of course.

Louis Nadelson: It's called a mountain dulcimer or a lap dulcimer, and it's played typically sitting on one's lap, but it can also be put on a tabletop and played on the tabletop as well. I don't think I can do that quite there, but played on a tabletop there. And so with this, there are typically three strings, four strings, six strings. There's different configurations of these, but there's a melody, a harmony, and a bass for these. Now they can be tuned in different keys. This one, one of the most common tunings is a D A D. And then the fret, it works very much like the fret of other instruments like the guitar, or mandolin, or some other instrument that has frets like that, banjo and so forth, for forming the different notes. And so these can be picked. So if I was to play something picked, it can be something like that. Or it can be strummed, so it could be something more like this.

Now I started playing this about a year ago, and I've taken a couple of lessons. I meet every other week now for about 45 minutes with a teacher. And I think that this is one of those things for me that is really interesting. I was reflecting back, my mom and stepdad, when I was probably about eight years old, took a class in Denver on making dulcimers, and I never heard 'em really play 'em, but I saw 'em making 'em and so forth. And they made a couple of them, and then that was done, and they were on to whatever else the next hobby was there. But I thought, what an opportunity. Had I played it then, I'd probably be teaching the lessons instead of taking the lessons.

But the nice thing about it, like I said, I picked it up about a year ago, is, it's humbling, because I'm pretty successful in most of the other things I do. And then to pick this up, it's like, okay, now I'm kind of, I don't wanna say starting over, but starting definitely at a very, very novice level. But I keep on reminding myself, it's something that I tell my students, and I've talked to you about as well in one of the classes, expertise is a long-term process, and the rule of thumb is five years or 10,000 hours of concentrated practice. And so when I practice a half hour a day, five days a week, I have many, many years to go to get to the level of being expert. But I'm getting to the level where I'm feeling it's fun, and I'm not frustrated when I'm playing. And once again, that frustration is pushing, I wanna be good at this, instead of going, this is a journey, not a destination. And so that's been a really interesting part of this process. But I think that this instrument is just such a beautiful sounding instrument as well. A lot of the music that we're playing, some of it's folk music, and I say we're playing because my wife started this about a year and a half ago, kind of toward the tail end of the pandemic. And she started taking some classes and got into it, and I was starting to pick my guitar back up at the time, and really refining some of my guitar skills, and then she started doing this. After a while, I got so intrigued, it's like, okay, I want to do it too, because it's something we do together, which is really fun as well. And so now we have some jam groups that we jam with every week. There's a couple of different groups that we go to.

And we've made friends through this circle. One of the meccas for dulcimer playing is actually here in Arkansas, and it's in Mountain View, Arkansas. And that's actually where this instrument was made, at the dulcimer shop there. And it's a McSpadden dulcimer is what it is. And so we've taken lessons up there and gone to some of the events up there and so forth too, and connected with the community there as well. So yeah, this is a fun journey. I just think that, once again, it's an opportunity for me to continue to learn, and I gotta keep on reminding myself, as you've brought up, not yet.

Lisa Belisle: Well, and hopefully maybe not ever, right? I mean, once we decide we're done, we've learned all that we need to learn, I guess we all might as well just hang it up, right?

Louis Nadelson: Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think the people that I've seen that are, I, Duane Porterfield is a guy here that we've taken lessons with up in Mountain View, national champion for the lap dulcimer, the mountain dulcimer. And he stays fresh by continuing to play new songs and making new music. And he's a real inspiration that way too. I think that you become expert at playing, but I think that when you do that, you continue to push in new ways. And that's very true for me professionally, in exploring new ideas, where there's some people, it's like, I don't have any expertise in that. It's like, good, I can learn. For me not to have an expertise in an area is not an excuse for me not to get involved in a project.

I've published a research piece with an attorney, in which we were looking at court cases and comparing different court cases, and my legal background is, I don't have one. And so, but I learned a lot from doing that. But that was once again, I brought to the table publishing skills, writing skills, this organizational skills that are required for putting together a publishable article. And so I bring that there, but then I get to learn all kinds of things as well. So once again, like working with you, mutually beneficial. And that's true with these musical instruments as well, I think.

Lisa Belisle: Dr. Nadelson, it's truly been a pleasure to spend time talking about a lot more of the creative aspects of the life that you live, in addition to all the time that you and I spend talking about the academic issues that we do. I know that you're hoping to have a show, which many people who are watching or listening to this may not be able to get to, because I believe it's in Arkansas, but it's going to be this fall, correct?

Louis Nadelson: Yeah, I'm hoping. Two of the things that I'm looking at, and I just haven't had time to do this, but I've gotta get it organized soon, because opportunities close up when you don't get in early on them sometimes. One of 'em is Art Walk here in Conway, happens the first Friday of each month. And so I'm hoping that I can do a show or two at First Friday in the near future. I've gotta look into it. I've done some shows in the past, but none of them in Arkansas. We did some when we were in Nevada. We did some when we were in Washington state. But I haven't done any for a while. So my shop is filling up with pieces, so I've gotta either start giving them away, or find new owners for 'em, or something there, because I'm gonna run out of space, and I have a large shop. So it's time to kind of move some things along.

Lisa Belisle: Okay. Well, we won't hold you to the possibility of being in an Art Walk show, but we will hold open the possibility that you will be in one. So for those people...

Louis Nadelson: Yeah, that sounds good.

Lisa Belisle: Yes. So for those people who are listening to or watching Radio Maine and happen to be in Arkansas at the time that your pieces are there, they will have the opportunity to interact with your pieces. And hopefully you...

Louis Nadelson: I would look forward to that. That would be delightful.

Lisa Belisle: I appreciate, again, the chance to talk with you more about other aspects of your life, in addition to the academic pursuits. And I've been speaking, for those of you who've been watching, with Dr. Louis Nadelson, who is a professor at the University of Central Arkansas, and also a creative to a pretty high degree. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you've been listening to or watching Radio Maine. Thank you for joining me today.

Louis Nadelson: Thank you so much for this opportunity. It's been a delightful conversation. I really appreciate it.